


all i ever wanted, all i ever needed

by mikotoh



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bandits & Outlaws, Blow Jobs, Bottom Arthur Morgan, Drabble, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, Oral Sex, Serious Injuries, Smut, Tent Sex, Thunderstorms, Top John Marston, Train Robbery, morston secret santa, morston secret santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:22:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28300809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikotoh/pseuds/mikotoh
Summary: Arthur gets himself hurt during a botched train robbery, and John is there to help him recover.---My Morston Secret Santa 2020 present for werewolfsquadron on Tumblr!The prompt was'anything hurt/comfort, with Arthur hurt and getting the love and care he deserves. would love if it's him and John alone and that results in a panicky John too quick to show his cards regarding feelings.'
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	all i ever wanted, all i ever needed

Arthur had taken his fair share of tumbles from trains over his lifetime of being an outlaw.

Normally he’d dust himself off, whistle for his horse, and get the hell out of there before any lawmen could show up and take him down.

At worst, he’d be swearing to himself under his breath as he did so from landing on the ground harder than he’d wanted.

But this time was different.

Arthur tried to tell Dutch the robbery he had planned was full of all sorts of holes in the details, but his mentor wouldn’t listen, and rushed him and John out before they had a clear idea of what was happening.

So they had to wing it with just the two of them.

It went fine, at first. After subduing the guards. Arthur broke into the baggage car to loot the valuables there, while John went ahead with robbing the passengers.

However, one particularly stupid but noble passenger had apparently been in the army during the war, and when both men had their backs to him he managed to sneak into the baggage car.

Arthur only heard him coming when it was too late to react, and as he turned around he was whacked across the face with a pistol.

Frankly he could have handled that. But during the scuffle that ensued afterward, him and the veteran got stuck outside in the small gap between the cars.

And then Arthur saw the door to the passenger’s car slide open to reveal John stepping out, having come to investigate the ruckus.

“Arthur!”  
  
Which of course was just enough distraction for the stranger to grab Arthur by the shoulders and throw him off the side of the train.

But they weren’t riding over flat, grassy plains by that point. No, they were over Roanoke Ridge, and Arthur had a long way down to tumble across jagged outcrops as he fell- until he smacked his head against one particularly nasty rock sticking out, and everything went black.

Well, if this was how he was going to die, he supposed it was much gentler than what he’d been expecting from the end of his life.

Just... silence, as it all faded into darkness.

Suffice to say Arthur was very much caught off guard when he could hear crickets chirping all of sudden, alongside the crackle of a campfire and the smell of salve applied liberally on various places across his body.

He slowly opened his eyes to see the canvas of a tent roof hung above, and when he craned his neck slightly to look to the side he caught sight of a small lantern burning next to him.

Was he dreaming? Were there even dreams in the afterlife?

If he _had_ died, he must have been in hell, because when he sat up his head pulsed with a jolt of pain strong enough to make him grit his teeth and shut his eyes again as he pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Ah! Son of a…!”

From outside the tent Arthur heard the sound of someone scrambling to their feet, before the flaps to the opening were thrown open- and it was none other than one John Marston staring at him when he managed to force his eyes to reopen.

“Arthur! Oh, thank god!”

The older man continued groaning under his breath as John kneeled down next to him on the ground and put a hand on his back.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Arthur, I thought you were never gonna wake up!”

“You know... I’m startin’ to think that woulda been better than the pain I’m in now. What the hell happened?”

John frowned and began rubbing gently at Arthur’s back, seemingly without realizing what he was doing.

“What do you _think_ happened? You fell off a train!”

“I _know_ that, idiot. I meant afterward.”

“Well, I’ll tell ya right now I threw that guy you were tusselin’ with overboard myself. After that I bailed with all the money and loot I could carry, before I set off on Old Boy to go get you. Bea followed us, and believe it or not it was her who found you first. Guess she’s the one who knows you the best by now.”

There was a tinge of bitterness to John’s last remark, but Arthur didn’t have it in him to give it any mind at the moment.

“How much was the haul?”  
  
“Not enough, considering you almost got your skull cracked. And the rest of you ain’t in great shape neither.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

As he glanced beside him and into John’s eyes, however, he could see an uncharacteristic amount of worry gleaming from their dark depths.

Right then John noticed where his hand was, and he quickly drew it back with an awkward cough into his elbow.

“A-Anyway. You’re lucky to be alive, I reckon.”

“Don’t feel like it. Can we head back to camp now, so I can get some real care?”  
  
“You’re not in a state to be ridin’ anywhere, Arthur. It was hard enough getting you here in one piece. ‘Sides…”

John looked back over his shoulder at the dark clouds looming in the grey sky.

“Think it’s gonna storm.”

Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, of course it is.”

With that he flopped back against the bedroll, wincing slightly in pain afterward.

John meanwhile dug his fingers into the grass on the ground and started anxiously tugging out pieces as he searched for the words he wanted to say most.

“... Seriously, Arthur. I’m… I’m glad you’re alive. You… You had me real scared for a second there.”

Arthur’s eyes darted over to the young man then, watching his obviously nervous body language closely.

“I’m sure I ain’t out of the clear just yet, Marston, if I really hit my head that hard.”

“You don’t think that scares me too?”

“Yeah, right. If I’m gone you’ll just get Dutch’s number one spot.”

“I don’t care about that!”

John hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but he hated whenever Arthur got like this- and it seemed to be happening a lot as of late.

“Do you really think that’s all that would matter to me if sumthin’ happened to you?!”

Arthur stared in disbelief for a moment, before putting on a wry smile.

“Okay, now I’m _really_ startin’ to think I died if you’re actually being sincere.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

John stood up with a huff then and stormed out of the tent, leaving Arthur contemplating just what was currently going on in that head of his.

He must have dozed off though, eventually, because next thing he knew he could see the stars shining in the dark through the opening to the tent, and suddenly John was next to him with a bowl of stew and a spoon.

“Here. Eat.”

Despite all the pain he was in, Arthur still found himself incredibly hungry, so he took the food offered to him without any of his usual snide remarks about the quality of John’s cooking.

And maybe it was the head trauma talking, but the stew tasted better than anything he’d eaten in a long time.

John spread out his own bedroll next to Arthur not long after that, and the two drifted into sleep following a tense silence in the air falling between them.

It wasn’t until well after noon the next day that Arthur woke up again- which was rather late for him, considering he was usually the earliest riser at camp- and his body was aching all over even more than the night before, while his head felt like it was going to burst at any moment.

He tried to flip over onto his side then in an attempt to fall back asleep, but a rush of pain flooded over him and caused him to cry out quietly.

“Argh… !”

Maybe the sound of heavy rain outside should have clued him in to it, but Arthur didn’t realize John was still laying next to him until he felt the other man’s touch on his back yet again.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright. I mean, it’s not _alright,_ but… I’m here, even though that don’t mean much. What hurts?”  
  
“Everything.”

“I know. What hurts the most?”

“... Head. Head, and… all these cuts and scrapes on me are burnin’, like they’re on fire.”

John moved away for just a second before returning with a jar of what must have been the salve Arthur could smell on himself last night.

He put both hands on Arthur’s shoulders then and gently turned him onto his back once more.

With a sort of care and attention unseen by Arthur until right then, John rubbed the ointment into the various open wounds all over his body- even going so far as to push Arthur’s union suit down from his chest to his waist so he could treat the ones on his torso.

And the older man was kicking himself internally for the way he could feel his cheeks heating up.

He kept his eyes focused on the roof of the tent above in an attempt to distract himself from the current situation, hoping to god it wasn’t too obvious why.

John drew back once he was finished with a weak smile on his face.

“There. How’s that feel?”  
  
“... Better.”

“Good.”

But the look on John’s face was signaling that he had something else on his mind.

“... Can’t do much about the headache, I reckon. I mean.... Unless…”

Arthur blinked a couple times before sitting up on the bedroll.

“John?”

He watched as the younger man nervously glanced towards the small opening in between the flaps at the entrance to the tent.

“... Arthur, if anything happens to you, to _either_ of us… I don’t want to go out with any regrets.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

He heard John let out an exasperated sigh as he turned back towards him- and just then, before Arthur had time to react, he felt John’s hands on his face and warm, chapped lips pressed against his own.

That certainly wasn’t what he was expecting.

The kiss didn’t last long, only a few seconds, and when John pulled away he was treated to the sight of Arthur staring at him like he had two heads, which was enough to make him feel his heart drop completely to his stomach.

He jutted back in place on the ground and started sputtering out any sort of excuse he could come up with.

“Sh-Shit, Arthur, I’m sorry, I didn’t… I don’t know why… Just, pretend that didn’t happen, it’s crazy-”

But a hand on his knee abruptly cut his words off, and he snapped his eyes back to Arthur’s as the other man gave him an oddly gentle smile.

“It’s alright, John. I… I agree. I don’t… wanna die with any regrets, neither.”

The two exchanged one last wistful glance between them, before John moved forward once more and pulled Arthur into another kiss, one that was much more passionate as he gripped carefully onto Arthur’s back, trying to mind any open wounds there.

Arthur meanwhile returned the kiss as best he could in his sorry state, and wrapped his own arms around John’s neck, one hand eventually reaching up to snake fingers through his dark, wavy hair.

Despite John being abhorrently bad at bathing, it was still far softer to the touch than he’d ever imagined it’d be.

And he’d given it a lot of thought, at least in the past few years.

After a few minutes Arthur was lying down flat again as they continued kissing, with John only breaking away when he needed to breathe- and then he simply shifted downward to start placing kisses across all the unscathed patches of skin on Arthur’s body he could currently reach: along his jaw, his chin, his shoulders, his neck, before grazing his lips over Arthur's pecs.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Arthur was having a hard time believing this was actually happening, but all it took was the feeling of John kissing him in a sensitive spot to snap him back to reality.

And of course a hand moving down and gently beginning to rub at the cloth of his union suit over his crotch made a quiet, breathy moan escape from his mouth.

"Ah… John…"

The younger man smirked to himself in satisfaction, just a bit, and continued groping at Arthur through the fabric while lowering himself further down and pressing kisses to his stomach.

John wouldn't admit it, at least not anytime soon, but he'd been dreaming of this day for far too long.

Eventually he reached over and shoved Arthur's union suit down even more, until it was bunched below his hips- and then wasted no time in wrapping a hand around his now exposed cock.

Arthur hissed out a loader moan against his teeth and turned his head to press his face into the bedroll.

"Mm…! J-John…"

But when John spoke up again, his tone was deathly serious.

"Listen… If anything hurts too much or if you wanna stop, just lemme know, okay?"

Arthur glanced at him from the side of his eyes before wordlessly nodding, sighing out further in pleasure as John started stroking.

"Nnn…"

John spent some time alternating between slow and fast hand movements as he relished in all the sounds Arthur was making, before sliding his body down along the other man's until he was eye level with his cock.

After taking in a deep breath, he leaned in and ran his tongue over and around the head, eliciting another loud moan from Arthur and earning the feeling of fingers running through his hair once more.

"O-Oh, ahh, John…! That's… that's good…!"

Hearing his name said like that was enough encouragement for John to take Arthur's cock into his mouth and rest it against his tongue, before sucking at it ever so slightly.

"J-John…! Ooh, mm, John…!"

Apparently the younger man had something else in mind though, so before he could get too ahead of himself he grabbed onto Arthur's legs and lifted them up onto his shoulders as he lay with his chest and stomach flat against the ground.

Afterwards John lowered his hands to hold onto Arthur's hips, and then picked up where he'd left off by swallowing Arthur's cock all the way down to the hilt while his head was between his thighs.

It took Arthur a second to process the change in position, but being deepthroated all of a sudden was enough to make his eyes go wide and his back arch as he tugged further at John's hair in his grasp, moaning out helplessly.

"Aaaah-! Shit, M-Marston, that’s-...! God _damn_ …!”

If a couple days ago someone had told him he would be falling off a train and then getting sucked off by John not long after, he would have laughed right in their face.

But here they were, and Arthur ended up covering his eyes with his free hand while John worked, as looking at him was too much to handle at the moment.

Not that John could even tell, as right now he was completely and utterly focused on giving Arthur pleasure- so much so that he hadn’t even paid any attention to his own erection straining against the fabric of his pants.

The only thoughts on his mind were of the feeling of Arthur’s cock in his mouth, and how fast he could bob his head up and down to make the other man feel as good as possible, so as to distract from the immense pain he’d been in.

And it seemed to be working, considering the louder and louder noises that were coming out of Arthur.

“J-John, ohhhhh, John…! Nnnngh, a-aaahhhhh…!”

At least the storm picking up outside meant that the thunder would surely muffle the sounds from any that might overhear them (if someone was stupid enough to be out in this weather, anyway).

Arthur eventually peeked through his fingers down at John and finally noticed that the latter hadn’t been touching himself at all, which made him reluctantly use his grip on John’s hair to stop him from moving.

“W-Wait.”

John glanced up with a curious look on his face, before finally pulling his mouth off with a wet popping sound that frankly just turned Arthur on even more.

“What? Is somethin’ wrong?”  
  
“No, no, just… c’mere.”

The younger man raised an eyebrow but scooted up without any objections, so that he was back to being face to face with Arthur.

And then he caught himself gasping as Arthur dropped his own hands and started fiddling with the button on John’s pants.

“Nnn…!”

But something was off.

“A-Arthur, I don’t think you’re in any shape to… y’know...”

Admittedly Arthur rolled his eyes a bit at John’s inquiry.

“We’re not doing _that,_ dumbass.”

John stared in mild confusion until he felt his cock being pulled out and pressed against Arthur’s down below, as the older man took one of John’s hands and guided it to wrap around both of them at the same time.

“There ya go.”

“O-Oh. Right.”

“You really think I’d just let you fuck me this soon, anyway?”  
  
“Shut up. I… I ain’t got no clue what I’m doin’ here.”

John looked away then as he rubbed the back of his head anxiously.

“I just… wanna do it right, whatever _it_ is.”

Despite it all Arthur caught himself smiling, and he shifted in place slightly to sling his arms back around John’s neck as he pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Little Johnny Marston, always so nervous on the first date, ain’tcha?”

“Shut _up!_ ”

Arthur laughed briefly while John just kept on pouting above him, before the laughs were replaced by moans as John started moving his hand up and down along their cocks.

“Ah…! Mmm, oh, John… That’s it…!”

“Arthur…!”

John leaned in and pressed his mouth against Arthur’s for a deep kiss, shoving his tongue inside and swirling it all around as they both let out muffled groans.

He would stop his hand, briefly, but only to press his thumb against the tip of Arthur’s cock before resuming stroking them together, each time going a little faster.

Eventually, Arthur was the one to break out of the kiss so he could breathe out an “I’m close.” into John’s ear, at which the other man nodded and managed a “Me too.” in response.

With that John started jerking them off as quickly as he could, while Arthur put his head on John’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut.

“... Aaaaah, John, I’m…! Oooooohh, ohhhhhhhh…! J-John...!”

“Nnngh… Arthur…!”

The two men reached their climaxes practically in unison then, with John cumming on Arthur’s stomach, and Arthur unfortunately right on John’s shirt.

But John barely gave it any thought as he sat up after catching his breath and stripped down to his union suit before laying next to Arthur again, wrapping his arms around Arthur’s waist and hiding his face in his neck.

“... You have _no_ idea how long I’ve wanted to do… something like that.”

Arthur smiled a little in response as he returned the embrace, gripping tightly onto John’s back.

“... Me too.”

“Took you almost dyin’ to do it.”

“Heh. Guess so.”

“... Don’t scare me like that again, okay?”  
  
“I will certainly be doing my best to not fall off any more trains and down cliffs in the future.”

“I’m serious, Arthur!”

John pulled away a bit and gave him another one of those intensely solemn looks.

“You’re all I got since… since Abby left the gang. I… I couldn’t take losing the love of my life for the second time.”

And Arthur could feel his cheeks heating up at the sudden confession and sincerity.

“... Love?”

“Yes, love. Need me to say it a third time?”

At least John’s face was turning red too.

After taking a second for it all to settle in, Arthur smiled brighter than ever as he leaned up and placed a kiss to John’s forehead.

“Nah. Just glad to know the feeling’s mutual.”

Amazingly, John returned the grin, which was a rare sight from the normally dour young man.

“Well… that’s good then, I guess.”

The storm had calmed down enough that it was now only raining (albeit still pouring), and they stayed intertwined with each other without saying anything else as they listened to the weather outside.

Until John spoke up one more time, that is.

“... How’re you feelin’ now? Y’know... pain-wise?”

And then Arthur just nuzzled his face into John’s shoulder.

“Better than I have in years.”

**Author's Note:**

> https://sexpositions.club/positions/11.html I STILL CANT DESCRIBE POSITIONS LOL
> 
> it seems i also have no idea how to write arthur on bottom when john isnt being a bastard, but im fffffairly happy with how it turned out so hey
> 
> first time writing in-universe smut for rdr btw 🤠
> 
> title is from the song enjoy the silence by depeche mode (link bc its a good fuckin song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiZ5bB438eE)


End file.
